President Wilson and His Critics 



(Reprint od from Boston Herald of August 4, 1918) 



The antagonism to President Wilson, which assumed extraordi- 
nary bitterness during the last presidential campaign, is not extinct. 
Alleged against him are substitution of words for deeds, delays in ac- 
cepting war as inevitable, lack of pre-war preparation, unwillingness 
to see intelligent advisers, an inefficient cabinet, failure to utilize the 
"big men" of the country. Influential citizens are enraged that a 
" pacifist " secretary of war should be pitted against the German war 
lord. 

Two questions arise: First, as to the facts, whether since his re- 
election the President and his chief advisers have done well or ill; 
second, as to the wisdom and usefulness of much current criticism. 

Lord Northcliffe has likened our war preparations to the slowness 
in laying the unseen foundations of our sky-scrapers and to the speed 
later in erecting the seen structures. Analogy may also be drawn to 
relief work after great disasters. Then there are hurried individual 
efforts to help, criticism, and belief that miracles may be performed, 
that the edict, "let there be light," may be followed automatically 
by the fulfilment, " and there was light." These are to be contrasted 
with a central relief program, which includes diagnosis, organization, 
development of public opinion, and eventually mastery of the whole 
problem — a program which may seem slow at first, but should in due 
course unfold itself as adequate and truly expeditious. 

Col. Roosevelt, with his keen desire to lead to Europe a small 
army hastily trained and equipped, and his persistent criticism 
throughout, has been typical of one point of view. The Wilson ad- 
ministration has adopted the other. To build ships in the requisite 
numbers, great shipyards, like those at Hog Island, have been built. 
There are now 159 American shipyards, with 819 ways, as compared 
with 61 yards and 148 ways a year ago. To train soldiers for modern 
warfare, trainers in the latest methods had to be trained. Men and 
money had to be supplied, the former by conscription, the latter by 
reconciling public opinion to unprecedented taxes and to huge sub- 
scriptions to loans; and every part of the whole vast program had 



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to be adjusted to every other part, so that men and equipment and 
adequate finances and shipyards and coal docks and railroads in 
France should all emerge out of the chaos of a great crisis into a 
well conceived and properly inter-related working organization. 

A YEAR'S DOINGS 

The following facts are patent to everybody: In "a wasted year" 
100,000,000 peace-loving and superficially materialistic people, includ- 
ing millions of German-Americans, have been converted into a com- 
pact, self-sacrificing, war-waging nation. By July 1 over 1,000,000 
American troops had been sent across the Atlantic, in spite of the 
scarcity both of experienced officers and of transports, and with only 
291 lives so far lost in transit. By June 7, 1,300,000 rifies had been 
produced. Over $10,000,000,000 has been successfully raised by loans 
at low rates. Over $6,250,000,000 has been lent to the allies. Over 
$270,000,000 has been given the Red Cross. Government control of 
railroads, the organization of other industries for war purposes and 
the conservation of food and fuel are typical instances of the all- 
inclusive transformation under the leadership of the national admin- 
istration. 

The verdict of Europe seems pertinent. A great English univer- 
sity has recently conferred its highest degree on President Wilson; 
Paris has named a boulevard for him; Florence has made him a 
burgher; returning travelers agree that in Europe he is deemed the 
greatest man in the world. Mr. Lloyd George has said that the re- 
sults already achieved show " an amazing piece of organization," 
adding of our troops: "They are superb both as to material and 
training. They are an accession of strength beyond the computa- 
tion of the most sanguine of us." Germany agrees. The military 
contributor to the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung says: "The 
large number claimed for the last three months seems to us quite 
impossible, in view of the shortage of enemy tonnage. It can't be 
done. Where could the Americans have raised the requisite number 
of officers so expeditiously?" The feelings of the French over the 
size of American hospitals, docks and railroads in France have been 
condensed into the word " bewildered." 

BAKER TRIED AND NOT FOUND WANTING 

The testimony of Mr. Wendell Endicott of Endicott, Johnson & 
Co., just returned from Europe, seems also pertinent. He says: "The 
American army is the best fed, the best clothed, and the best 
equipped of all the fighting forces in Europe." The New York World 
calls the results thus far attained, " the most remarkable achieve- 
ment of its kind known to military annals." 

Secretary Baker has been the executive whose department may 
be chiefly credited with the " amazing " skill in organization which 
impressed Mr. Lloyd George. On this side of the Atlantic, however, 
notably in circles from which wise leadership might naturally be ex- 



2^ 



poctod, the common attitudo has been one of execration. Last winter 
a New York senator was applauded when he characterized as " a 
gigantic bluff" and "exaggeration of the wildest sort" Secretary 
Baker's prophecy that 1,000,000 men would have been sent overseas, 
not by July 1, as proved to be the case, but by Jan. 1, 1919. 

The claim has been made that Secretary McAdoo had been found 
wanting, but before the Liberty loans had been successfully floated 
and the railroads of the country had begun under his control to .show 
increased efficiency. So to an even more superlative degree had the 
secretary of the navy been held up to ridicule month after month, 
year after year. When we entered the war it was charged and widely 
believed that our men-of-war had on board only one round of ammu- 
nition and pitiful stories were told in Boston of the shameful lack 
of warm clothes for the seamen on the first torpedo boat flotilla 
which sailed from Charlestown in the cold winds of April, 1917, to 
cross the Atlantic. Yet, as a matter of fact, every ship in our navy 
had full war equipment when we entered the war and every sailor 
on the torpedo boat flotilla had all the warm garments which the com- 
mander could desire. The achievements of the navy since we entered 
the war speak for themselves. Even Senator Lodge is now enthusi- 
astic over this branch of the service. 

The collapse of the Daniels tradition under the test of war seems 
not to have led the critics to think twice before transferring their 
bitterness to Mr. Baker. When, too, the President departed from his 
otherwise unbroken custom of not replying to attacks and announced 
that Mr. Baker was the most efTicient public offlcial whom he had 
ever known, the critics immediately accused the President of having 
become " irritable " and continued without pause their attacks on 
the traditional Baker. Last spring they accused him of deserting 
his post when he slipped away to Europe. But during his brief so- 
journ there he acquired first-hand information and it was then that 
the offer was made of American troops to fill the gaps in the regi- 
ments of other nations. It was also then that the allies agreed to 
place all their armies under a single supreme commander. 

The war department under Secretary Baker has been exception- 
ally free from " politics." To the everlasting credit of both him and 
Mr. Daniels the most determined effort in all history has been made 
to preserve the morals and the health of our soldiers and sailors; 
and the official figures show that the seemingly impossible has been 
accomplished. 

THE LACK OF "PREPAREDNESS" 

Even if all this is granted, however, the critics will not be satis- 
fied but will maintain that the administration was remiss in not fore- 
seeing earlier that this country must enter the war and in not pre- 
paring before hand. In answer one may point out that the original 
" preparedness " program consisted of a demand for more dread- 
noughts and battle cruisers, more guns for our almost unprotected 



headlands and a larger army with which to repel a German invasion 
said to be probable. Urgent attention was called to the danger of 
our becoming a second Belgium. " The Battle Cry of Peace," depict- 
ing such a calamity, was extolled. The program was in fact defen- 
sive and founded in fear. Few thought of sending an army to France, 
for, until Balfour, Joffre and Viviani opened our eyes in the spring 
of 1917, the belief was almost universal that the allies were sure to 
win. It was after we entered the war that most Americans found 
themselves face to face with the solemn need of bearing the main 
burden of offensive warfare if Germany was to be beaten. Before 
that time there had appeared to be only two practical ways in which 
we could help the allies, one naval, the other financial. The navy 
had been prepared and the federal reserve act, passed under the 
leadership of this administration, has enabled us to finance both our 
own preparations and the enormous purchases by the allies in this 
country. 

Dreadnoughts and battle cruisers, which could not have been fin- 
ished within three or four years, were less needed than cargo vessels, 
transports and torpedo boats, which have been rushed. An adequate 
army could not have been raised without conscription and that in 
turn would have been impossible without the pressure of actual 
war. The hundreds of French officers now training our men could 
not have been invited here while we were neutral. The whole mili- 
tary " preparedness " program must have been small and inappro- 
priate. Public opinion would not have sanctioned such sacrifices as 
we are now making until the time was ripe. 

WHY WE REMAINED NEUTRAL SO LONG 

It should be added that during these difficult years the President 
clearly hoped to serve humanity best by remaining neutral. In his 
address of Oct. 20, 1914, he said: "We are a true friend to all the 
nations. Our friendship is offered in a spirit which no one need ever 
question. Therein lies our greatness. We are the champions of 
peace. We should be very jealous of this distinction because it is 
our dearest hope that this character may bring us an opportunity 
seldom vouchsafed any nation, the opportunity to counsel and ob- 
tain peace in the world." Six months later, April 20, 1915, he said: 
'• Is it not likely that the nations of the world will some day turn to 
us for the cooler assessment of the elements engaged? We are the 
mediating nation of the world. The opinion of America, the action 
of America, is ready to turn and free to turn, in any direction. 
There is a distinction waiting for this nation that no nation has ever 
yet got. That is the distinction of absolute self-mastery. I covet 
for America this splendid courage of reserve moral force." 

The critics will, of course, doubt the President's judgment in 
these aspirations. But again we may turn to Europe and this time 
to the diplomat whom we all most respect, Viscount Grey. Recently 
(see New York Times of June 30) he said: "President Wilson and 



his country have had in tliis matter (the proposed league of nations) 
the great advantage of having been for more than two years and a 
half before April, 1917, able to observe the war as neutrals free from 
the intense anxiety and effort that absorb all the thought and energy 
of the belligerents. They were able not only to observe, but to re- 
flect and to draw conclusions." Moreover, as the election of 1916 
indicated, the President could not have had a majority of his fellow- 
citizens behind him if he had led them into war on the Issues raised 
by the critics or until events had converted them to the belief that no 
other course was possible. 

BUSINESS EFFICIENCY 

The frequent complaint that our " big men " have been Ignored 
is refuted by Hoover, Goethals, Stettinius, Davison, Lovett, Vander- 
lip, Schwab. Ryan, Franklin, Harrison, Baruch, Warburg and a host of 
others like them now in the government service. The resources, both 
mental and physical, of this competent nation are every day better 
utilized. 

The late James Stillman, years ago a financier of the old school, 
described well last summer a change in certain of our leading busi- 
ness men who have in this crisis given up profit for the public ser- 
vice. "What is business?" said he. "These men have seen a new 
life." The unselfishness of America at this time under the leadership 
of the President must have been a factor in producing this vision of 
a new life among such men. The noble resolve of the whole country 
to go without its accustomed food that others in greater need may 
have it is a tribute alike to Mr. Hoover and to the administration 
which appointed him. The hundreds of ships with coal in their 
bunkers, enabled finally to leave our ice-bound harbor last winter, 
carrying needed freight to the allies, and the relief tlien given to our 
over-taxed railroads bear witness to the courage and resourcefulness 
of a public oflicial as maligned as either Mr. Daniels or Mr. Baker, 
the national fuel administrator. The fact that prices are not higher, 
w^hile production is not checked through lack of profit, attest the 
soundness of the administration's much criticised price-fixing. 

It is true that the original cut in the price of coal led to fear that 
production would be curtailed. But, with modifications since then, 
the shortage of coal is now attributed to abnormal demand and to 
scarcity of labor, cars and motive power, not to low prices, the pro- 
duction of coal having been under the fuel administrator the greatest 
on record. The recent increase from 23% cents to 26 cents per pound 
in the price fixed for copper, the veto by the President of the bill 
allowing more than $2.40 per bushel as the minimum price for wheat, 
the efforts of the President to persuade states and municipalities to 
deal justly with struggling public utilities, the guarantee of fair re- 
turns to holders of railroad securities, show the zeal of the admin- 
istration to protect producers and distributors of essentials on the 
one hand, and consumers on the other. Citizens brought face to face 



with labor leaders Insist that these leaders have been eager to serve 
the government and that the critics look too intently at individual 
strikes and too little at the more general desire to co-operate — a de- 
sire which must in part be due to the sympathy which the admin- 
istration has shown in labor problems. The administration's criti- 
cized love of peace must have helped in welding together the whole 
country when the stern necessity of entering the war was forced 
upon us. It has allayed a once dangerous charge, which might 
have persisted if Mr. Hughes were now President, that this is a 
rich man's war. 

WILSON IN DIPLOMACY 

Specific failures in President Wilson's diplomacy are manifest. 
He did not bring peace to Europe or eventually keep us out of the 
war or hold Russia in the alliance or force Germany to respect inter- 
national law or free Austria from Germany or rouse the German peo- 
ple against their rulers. The truth is that every ruler and states- 
man in Christendom has so far failed to attain his specific ends in 
this fearful conflict. But, as in all good work. President Wilson 
seems to have builded even better than he knew. The celebration 
of July 4th throughout Europe represents an evolution of thought of 
more fundamental import than the attainment of any specific object. 
Our President, scoffed at in his own country, has become the moral 
leader of the world. Under his guidance the allied cause has devel- 
oped into a crusade for liberty, humanity and justice. America's un- 
selfishness has made the German war aims seem the more debased, 
the more hopelessly typical of an evil age now passing. The Presi- 
dent's despised " words " have in fact been messengers bearing vital 
thoughts to all sorts and conditions of struggling men, shaming a 
few who needed to be shamed, inspiring millions. 

At the National Liberal Club July 10 Mr. Asquith expressed the 
appreciation of liberal England as follows: "President Wilson has 
taken the greatest decision of our age and has carried his people in 
it. He has laid before the world the grounds for his decision and 
the spirit in which it was adopted. We acknowledge our unbounded 
admiration of the magnificent contribution America has made, is 
making and will continue to make in ever-increasing measure. Here 
again we gratefully trace the guiding hand and driving will of the 
President. Probably the world owes its greatest debt to President 
Wilson for helping men whose vision has been blurred and blinded 
by the smoke of the battlefield to lift up their eyes and to look 
through it and beyond it. President Wilson has done more than any 
other statesman to concentrate the minds of the allies, and even of 
enemy peoples, upon a league of nations as our dominating world 
aim. This is a large step in advance on the road of human prog- 
ress, but it can and must be taken, and, when the goal is reached due 
honor will be paid to President Wilson as the greatest of its pio- 
neers." 

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LATIN-AMERICA WITH US 

Hardly less significant was the celebration of July 4 (liis year 
by all the nations of South America. When Mr. Wilson became 
President, all Latin-America suspected, feared and disliked this coun- 
try. Then began his Mexican policy, or " lack of policy," for which 
the critics were without adequate words to express their censure. 
Yet the stone, which the whole host of them rejected, has become the 
cornerstone of the new diplomacy which is one of the glories of 
America. For, in our attitude toward Mexico, a great country, in 
spite of the critics, made its own material interests secondary to 
the rights of a weak nation striving for liberty. President Wilson's 
addresses in 1913, on Aug. 27, Oct. 27 and Dec. 2, have In them the 
gift of prophecy, for they foreshadow the new ideals for which men 
are now fighting in a w^orld war not then begun. His address of 
Sept. 2, 1916, reasserts these ideals in the midst of a campaign in 
which his most influential fellow-citizens were treating them with 
contempt, confident that his defeat could thus be assured. The lan- 
guage of these mostly ignored addresses is as clear and beautiful 
as that in any of his letters and addresses which have fired the imagi- 
nation of the world since we entered the war. He then won both by 
words and deeds the respect and affection of all Latin-America and 
became the pioneer in the great cause now championed by united 
America, that states in their relation to one another must be as con- 
siderate of the rights of others as have long been honest private 
citizens. The old shameless diplomacy, not only of the German im- 
perialists, but of time-honored tradition throughout Europe, has at 
last met its match. 

The most bitter and persistent of the critics have been our most 
highly educated citizens. At the Harvard Commencement exercises 
two years ago practically all the alumni present rose to their feet 
with enthusiasm for the proposition that this strong country should 
invade weak Mexico with fire and sword to avenge alleged wrongs 
at Columbus and Carrizal and the harm done the persons and prop- 
erty of Americans in Mexico. The President faced almost the whole 
body of college men with faith in democracy in Mexico, as elsewhere, 
and w'ith approval of the Mexican revolution because it was right. 
The critics made the task doubly hard, for w'hat they said tended to 
give the impression that the President did not represent the country. 
They are now giving all that is dear to them in the battle for democ- 
racy which they then opposed. They abominate Germany. Yet, since 
Von Hintze became German foreign secretary, it has been intimated 
that while he was German minister to Mexico, in the early days of 
the revolution, he was endeavoring to embroil this country with 
Mexico. We all know that the critics of the President were then 
trying to do the same thing. Even since we entered the war, hardly 
a week has passed without some effort to stir up ill-will and mis- 
understanding with Mexico, a condition replete with possibilities for 



013 900 771 2 

giving aid and comfort to Germany. The German efforts in Mexico 
and tliose of the President's critics seem at times almost to have 
coincided. 

CRITICS WITHOUT PERSPECTIVE 

Apparently without perspective, the critics have looked for flaws 
rather than for a sympathetic interpretation of the President's pur- 
poses. While they ignored his earlier addresses, they dwelt continu- 
ally on scattered phrases such as " too proud to fight," " watchful 
waiting " and " neutral in thought." Scholar though he is, he has 
not been the candidate of the cultivated classes. He has represented 
to such classes here their political impotence, while he has become 
the spiritual leader of the allied cause and has appeared to millions 
everywhere as a Moses leading the world out of the wilderness of 
the old brutal diplomacy. The cultivated classes in America have 
been slow to see this, for their horizon has too often been limited 
to the views of their own small circles and they have not been lead- 
ers in the new life now stirring in the world. 

He is the President of a nation, strong in its quiet people, who 
are reluctant to shed blood, but, once roused, are invincible crusad- 
ers. The " pacifist " secretary of war typifies a nation determined 
to serve mankind, the German war lord a nation determined to con- 
quer mankind. The highly educated critics are superb in doing their 
full share as soldiers and sailors. But they have sat in the seats 
of the scornful while an American President has made all other 
countries in this hemisphere our friends, has opened the eyes of a 
disillusioned Europe, has shown the world how bankrupt is the old 
vaunted statesmanship, has led the way toward a new, just and hu- 
mane order everywhere and has raised America to the position of 
standard-bearer for the millions now struggling to be free. 

JOHN F. MOORS. 
July 19, 1918. 



"What we seek is the reign of law, 

based upon the consent of the governed 

and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind". 

The President. 
Mount Vernon, 1918. 



